Why Build ? – 1st Prize Winning Essay by Olivia AHIALAKA (SSC3)

The word “build” is transcribed as /bIld/ and can be used as a noun or a verb. The 11th Edition of the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “build” as the development of something according to a systemic plan, by a definite process or on a particular base. The same dictionary defines the word “why” as the cause, reason or purpose for doing something. Therefore, the phrase “Why build” can be interpreted as the reason for developing something according to a systematic plan, by a definite process or on a particular base. It could mean many things; building a house, school, family, career, machine, country, etc. Most importantly, it is the building of one’s personality. This involves, developing your self-confidence, time and stress management skills, creative and learning skills, communicative skills, problem- solving and decision- making skills. To be successful, you need to develop all of the mentioned above.

Self-confidence is a quality admired by everyone, a quality needed to be successful yet so many people find it difficult to acquire. We need to build our self-confidence because we cannot achieve anything if we are always nervous and fumbling over every project we embark on. When we are self-confident, we gain the confidence of others, which is one of the key ways a self-confident person achieves success. As we build our self-confidence, we develop other skills like use of body language, how to speak, what to say, and our behaviour and so on.

Leadership skills today are viewed by many as something that you don’t need, something beyond reach, meant for only managers, politicians and those in positions of authority. We need to build our leadership skills to be able to work together with a group of people to solve a problem and arrive at a decision, extract information from others, and teach others something, resolve conflict between two or more people, change the way things are done and so on.

Our creative and learning abilities need to be built because they are essential for achieving success as we need them in every field of human activity. When we are creative and open to learning, we develop flexible skills that help us to face the uncertain future, be able to adapt to change through innovative ideas and become productive.

We need to build our problem-solving and decision- making skills as they are needed in day-to-day business transactions and also essential in life. Decision- making skills need to be built to help make quality assessments of difficult situations. We need to build our problem -solving skills because we all face problems whether large or small that we need to tackle and find solutions to the difficulties.

Because of the conflicting demands for time which could lead to stress, we need to build our time and stress management skills to be able to distribute our time efficiently among study, leisure, business and social activities.

Effective communication helps improve our relationships with others. As we build on our communication skills, we build ourselves. We don’t need to depend on what others had built, we need to build ourselves to be good people, we are helping to build our nation because where there are good people, and there is a great nation.

In this world, there are people who are passengers and there people who left footprints. A person who knows “how” may always have a job, but the person who knows “why” will always be his boss because he solves problems, never lacks ideas that can build an organization and has hope for a better future. As good thinkers, we need to know why we do what we do. So the question still remains, “Why build?”